SPYSHOTS: Proton Iriz gears up for first major facelift

Here are some images of a taped-up Proton Iriz roaming Klang Valley streets, thanks to reader Prasanth Hari Kharan. They show a red five-door hatchback, which is clearly the Proton Iriz, wearing swirl camouflage on the front and rear bumpers, and black tape across the rear hatch.

What this means is that Proton’s Myvi/Jazz-fighting B-segment hatchback is ready for its first major facelift, and second update since it made its debut in 2014.

In June 2017, Proton released an updated Iriz with NVH refinements that included a reduction in the number of engine mounts (from four to three), a new exhaust system and higher-quality sound insulation. Proton also retuned the ECU and the CVT’s transmission control unit (TCU) for quicker, more linear response.

Click to enlarge

The exterior was left untouched then, but it won’t be so this time. The covered up front and rear bumpers hint at new mouldings, and we can see that the rear reflectors are placed higher than on the current car, which has them in the “diffuser” piece. The black horizontal covering on the hatch could be hiding spaced-out Proton lettering, as seen on the soon-to-be-launched Geely Boyue-based Proton X70 SUV. New rims are on the cards, too.

Currently, the Iriz comes with either a 94 hp/120 Nm 1.3 litre engine or a 107 hp/150 Nm 1.6 litre unit, paired to a CVT automatic. The smaller VVT engine can also be had with a five-speed manual gearbox.

Danny Tan loves driving as much as he loves a certain herbal meat soup, and sweet engine music as much as drum beats. He has been in the auto industry since 2006, previously filling the pages of two motoring magazines before joining this website. Enjoys detailing the experience more than the technical details.

The Iriz had a very big potential. Great chassis. Beautiful futuristic shape. Innovative interior. Let down by weak engine and poor gearbox. Put in better engines from Geely and the Iriz could be a real Myvi fighter.

Iriz is a big failure. I don’t know why Proton wants to spend money to keep the model going. Even when Tun M was Chairman of Proton, he told a press conference that Iriz sales were super bad and the model is a failure.

Last year, Proton CEO admitted, 78% of Proton’s total sales are Persona and Saga. The remainder bulk is Government ordered Perdanas.

Proton should consider having a special edition of Iriz, one-off R3 (suspension tuning, CFE, manual) paying homage to its short success in rally. With its good handling, I am pretty sure it’s going to get a lot of interest domestically & overseas.

Proton,if u want to launch facelifts for irrelevant and failed products,Protong fanboys should be entitled to big discounts.IT is grossly unfair and an insult to their intelligence to keep buying a stale product at normal or even higher pricing.
DR.Li is working 24/7 to bring in the 1.3,1.5 and 2 litre right hand drive sedans while the DRB boys still recycle crap.
The Iriz,Suprima,Exoras,Preves have seen better days..Jurassic in history now.

“DR.Li is working 24/7 to bring in the 1.3,1.5 and 2 litre right hand drive sedans while the DRB boys still recycle crap”…
you implying that there’s a team A and B or some sort of disconnect between parties involved shows your complete and utter unknowing of things in P1.

Pls la bro stop mentioning the “4 engine mounting to 3 engine mounting” like it was a major discovery or first in the world etcetc..its embaraasing..is this the “best” Prodon can do after so many years (designing bumpers and headlights mostly)..just sack the lousy designer so simple wat he still big fat salary but design louay ugly cars..so wat can full tank petrol round the world, design sells

Aiyoo yoo. Habis la Honda now and their arrogant Honda salesmen. Nobody is touching Honda now. Honda Salesmen all crying. Honda Malaysia is known as Honda – The Power of Sucks. Bad luck to buy their cars. Lets talk about bad Service Quality in Honda Malaysia, Bad Assembly Quality in Honda Malaysia and Terrible Design for Upcoming Honda Models including Current Honda Civic

Firstly, after Honda Assemblypeople in Malaysia finish assembling install the Honda parts for Honda models, they didn’t even bother to check whether it has been secured or not. Or either, Honda Assemblypeople in Malaysia always use the fake parts to install for Honda models as many people complain that got many problems for Honda models after they bought for several months.

Secondly, after people service their Honda models, they felt that it is wasting times and money of servicing their Honda models as Honda service people in Malaysia either Honda service people in Malaysia didn’t service their Honda models properly or Honda service people in Malaysia didn’t even bother to service their Honda models.

Malaysians rather buy Hyundai, Toyota, Proton, Kia, BMW Mercedes, Volkswagen, Peugeot, Mazda, Renault, Mitsubishi, Nissan and even other carmakers. Malaysians also already know that Honda Malaysia regard Malaysian lives as dirt and don’t care whether you die or not. This Honda – The Power of Dreams should be named as Honda – The Power of Sucks because Honda Service Quality in Malaysia and Honda Assembly Quality in Malaysia is so teruk.

Malaysians have now dignity. they know Honda Malaysia are big cheats. Charge so much for the car, yet compromise on our lives and safety of the family.

How Honda Malaysia? Still giving bad service and bad quality for Honda Malaysia Car Assembly?

Our lives not important Honda Malaysia?

The Honda Malaysia is a hugest failure. No need to write good comments a lot about Honda for upcoming Honda articles in paultan.org website. We as smart people said that Proton, Kia, Toyota, BMW, Mercedes, Volvo, Mazda, Hyundai, Nissan, Peugoet, Renault and even other carmakers for service quality and assembly quality are much better than Honda Malaysia, even the apek jual ikan also said that too. So Honda Malaysia is dead.

Ben Yap and other Honda salesmen are also now hiding like chickens. They will come in here and Firstly, Ben Yap say that He got Civic who compares other carmakers and he also wanted Honda Malaysia to be top no.2 and top no.1. Besides that, Other Honda Salesmen also said that Honda Service Malaysia have good quality. Honda Salesmen are talking all the fake comments, especially for Ben Yap. Nobody is going to buy rubbish Honda in Malaysia. Even now, their Honda Malaysia Sales is always cheated and very biased as Honda Service Quality in Malaysia and Honda Assembly Quality in Malaysia is very terrible.

I could be mistaken, but it sounds like you don’t like Honda cars. Well that’s your point of view. MAA numbers still shows Honda is number 2 best selling car in Malaysia, so it seems you are alone in your judgement. Anyhow, this comment section is about the facelift Proton Iriz, why don’t you comment that nobody buys this fabulous car and Jazz outsells this model ? All models in Malaysia have QC problems. Try and be a bit objective, and do continue to have great a positive day ahead.

When we add work to a product. is so that we can sell for higher price. Proton add work, after that sell lower price. Where is the logic? Did that with the perdana as well. And about to do it to X70. Know that cannot sell higher price but want to add work :S

Don’t talk about facelift….where is Proton Iriz? Proton showcased the car 5 years ago. then they asked Government extra billions to do further research on EV technology (don’t know why).

Now 5 years we are waiting. 5 tahun tunggu. Still no Iriz EV. The whole world is moving towards EV and hybrid. Even Proton Hybrid also, Proton promised us 10 years ago. 10 years also I have been waiting for Proton Hybrid.

Yes, this is very true. I have driven both and I guess why people like the Myvi is the light controls, and get-in-and-go style. The Iriz is a better car when it comes to serious driving, for example taking corners or high speed stability. The Iriz’s undoing is that it caters more to enthusiasts than those who simply treat their cars as appliances to get from A to B in least fuss. And Malaysian’s at that income level, generally don’t care about safety…which is sad.

Not exactly bad in design, Iriz has a unique Alpine look except the badly designed engine mounting that sent the car vibrating n sounded noisy. Improve version will probably does better then the earlier version. Other then that the overall assembling must improve too.

You can either post as a guest or have an option to register. Among the advantages of registering is once a name has been registered, a guest cannot post using that name. If you have an account, please login before commenting. If you wish to have a profile photo next to your name, register at Gravatar using the same e-mail address you use to comment.